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"The Plum Moon. / Lunatic and nocturnal. / Intensive Master on Tango"

BCN CAT POETRY BLOCK|May 17, 2015

"Deep pink: poetry and tango. The 'savoir faire' of the artists has been noticed, their professionalism, the love they feel for Tango and everything it represents. A luxury you"

Now he stops for a moment, looks around and adds: “this is to really fall asleep. You don't need the Valium here." laughs "How are we doing on time? No fucking idea, right?” Laughter and silence. Continue reading: "the official language is a mask [...]", "even the most epic fantasies have a ridiculous, experimental side". He asks about the weather and decides to leave it at that. Applause And it's the turn of the last participant, Núria Martínez Vernis: "imagination is soft". His broken voice, between naïve and idiosyncratic, as if coming out of a deep and inconcrete place, which will always be known as out of line. "He has left a fullness that cannot be matched", "monsters, who create ink when they lack blood". He gets up He says he will tell a comic, a story, who knows. She gets off the stage, turns, now she is the star that moves around the audience: "with the double thread of the sour dir me", she walks, now she adopts a more theatrical, histrionic tone, with voice straddling a crazy old woman and a possessed girl, she modulates and sings as if she were in the dining room of her home. "Saying yes, which is the result of the inescapable no", "dexondir... de... di di...". Of all the notes taken in the dark, the Pointer only understands this one: "indifference is a degree". The Pointer has run out of pen, he wonders, or is it the darkness that swallows the ink? Martínez Vernís continues, he has returned to his seat. The circle closes, the roll must continue to gravitate up there somewhere. At the moment of finishing, the Pointer, your servant, leaves spiritedly in search of a taxi to arrive on time at the Ateneu Barcelonès, which is hosting the event 'Rosa profunda: poesia i tango'. There are still many people at CosmoCaixa. It's cool outside, stately homes, the last rays of the sun, it's going downhill. Inside the taxi, the taxi driver dodges cars like a motoring video game, foot down, zigzag, pim-pam. Oh, the Center, oh, guirigall, oh, Plaça Catalunya Rambles inside! The night is already tingling.
THE MOON THE PLUM

As usual these days, it's been a day that invites you to go out. The imposing Sagrada Família is surrounded, as every day, by hundreds of tourists who erode the building by click click click. It's twelve noon. A few meters away, in the Sagrada Família library, the first act of the day begins, La Lluna la Pruna, a visual shadow show aimed at boys and girls aged 0 to 5. Event's Hall. Children who meet are their first social encounters. Some very small ones settle on their parents' laps, others investigate the balancing anatomy of the chair. The space consists of the audience area, the projection screen that acts as a hinge and, behind it, a table with various utensils where the people responsible for the show, Mercè Framis and another woman who helps him, perform the live montages, combining images in transparency with hands and backlights, thus generating the games of shadows and movements that are embodied on the screen, together with the drawings. What would be a montage of Chinese shadows.

The act therefore consists of visuals that are a starting point for introducing popular children's songs: 'Sol, sole', 'Cargol treu banya', 'La gallina 'purricana''', 'La luna, la pruna', etc. There is also background music, based on toy instruments (a little – and to be clear – in the manner of Pascal Comelade) and the voices of the protagonists, which serve both to tell the stories and to set the tone for what happens there, for example the sound of the sea when a little fish appears on the screen that wants to travel: "little fish, from the reed to the reed, little fish from the reed to the reed". A boy with four staples decides to go explore on his own, gets up, seems to want to go up to the stage area but in the end is content to look at it, dumbfounded to know why.

Once outside, in the light of day, Barcelona continues to spin to its tune: guirigall, a bachelorette party, people up and down.

LUNATIS: POETRY AND NIGHT

In the afternoon it's time to climb up the city to the CosmoCaixa planetarium, where the recital 'Llunátics: poetry and night' is held, with the participation of the poets Màrius Sampere, Enric Casasses, David Castillo and Núria Martínez-Vernis. When the Pointer arrives there is already a queue. You can see that there is so much demand that it seems that there will be people who will not be able to enter. Precisely today is 'Museum Night' and it seems that people are more inclined to move there. The room is full to overflowing. The poets on stage are preparing batches and lamps with which they will read. I hear Màrius Sampere say to the co-director of 'La Setmana': "I wrote a special poem for the occasion". The lights go out and the sky of the planetarium turns on, dark blue, while stars appear and the sun and moon, which are slowly turning. The Pointer cannot see the notebook he is writing in. He will try it blindly, pulling the trigger and bad handwriting. Sam Abrams hosts the event. It introduces the public to the nocturnal theme of poetry and makes four brushstrokes following the tradition it has had in literature. All in all, as old as going on foot even though, he remarks, "it was mainly from Romanticism that the theme became insistent and transversal in all literature". After reading a couple of night-themed poems, it's the turn of the first participant, Màrius Sampere.
Time of presentation of the act
Sampere tells us that the first poem he will read is written specifically for this event and that, in fact, more than half of his entire work was written at night. It begins: "one day, I don't know which one, the night was lost and I found it in my eyes", "we were so happy, as dark and unknown", "defying the path of the stars, we will return home", and follow The stars in the planetarium are turning, little by little. Sampere reads with energy, vociferates with his throat and arms: "a whole sky wounded immensity by a plate on the table", "a whole sky and dying, and dying, and not knowing, not knowing, whether an egg or a chestnut" .. Now the Moon passes through my piece of planetarium sky. "And no answer rises from the earth, except for a flower". Applause It's Enric Casasses' turn: "when they told me it was about 'lunatics, poetry and night', I found it to be too much information, and I chose only night. Laughter from the audience. Casasses begins, standing up to read. One hand in the back pocket, with the other orchestra: "to see is to say little, when the space of the stars has taken shape concentrated in four palms". Now the sky is blacker. Read 'The clown of tradition': “they paralyze me with fear so that he knows his place. It reminds us of Thomas Hardy: "the narrow mind of someone who wants to write a book in a world like this" and goes on: "I made him open his eyes at night so he could see me". Now Casasses intones a rhyming poem and David Castillo, sitting, follows him with his hand. The universe revolves orbiting above our heads, now the sun is back with the stars but here it is never daytime. Applause Does the Pointer see anything like a galaxy, or is it a nebula? Will the universe crack us up? It's David Castillo's turn: "now it's a commitment. After these two cracks comes the neighborhood.” And he adds, smiling: "so much fighting for so many things and we're finally here at La Caixa, aren't we?". People laugh, some are silent in plan: has it happened or what? Castillo continues: "an anarchist friend from [here the Apuntador cannot understand the letter] told me: the banks are about to rob them". Laughter and silence. A light and brief applause from the back of the room. Castillo continues: "getting off topic as often as I do, in my condition of a lunatic", I will write a poem that has nothing to do with the topics proposed today and "which is the prologue to the nonsense I will tell you" . And it begins: "as if malastruganza was no whim", gypsies and "Slavic so-and-so", supermarkets and scrap collectors. "A poem that is not about the night but about those who cannot dream", he adds. "Plaça Reial, the most similar to the playground of 'La model'", "they make hashish with their eyes", "I am confused like a pigeon in the Metro".
Postcard of the Planetarium at night. The poets, doing things.
Now he stops for a moment, looks around and adds: “this is to really fall asleep. You don't need the Valium here." laughs "How are we doing on time? No fucking idea, right?” Laughter and silence. Continue reading: "the official language is a mask [...]", "even the most epic fantasies have a ridiculous, experimental side". He asks about the weather and decides to leave it at that. Applause And it's the turn of the last participant, Núria Martínez Vernis: "imagination is soft". His broken voice, between naïve and idiosyncratic, as if coming out of a deep and inconcrete place, which will always be known as out of line. "He has left a fullness that cannot be matched", "monsters, who create ink when they lack blood". He gets up He says he will tell a comic, a story, who knows. She gets off the stage, turns, now she is the star that moves around the audience: "with the double thread of the sour dir me", she walks, now she adopts a more theatrical, histrionic tone, with voice straddling a crazy old woman and a possessed girl, she modulates and sings as if she were in the dining room of her home. "Saying yes, which is the result of the inescapable no", "dexondir... de... di di...". Of all the notes taken in the dark, the Pointer only understands this one: "indifference is a degree". The Pointer has run out of pen, he wonders, or is it the darkness that swallows the ink? Martínez Vernís continues, he has returned to his seat. The circle closes, the roll must continue to gravitate up there somewhere. At the moment of finishing, the Pointer, your servant, leaves spiritedly in search of a taxi to arrive on time at the Ateneu Barcelonès, which is hosting the event 'Rosa profunda: poesia i tango'. There are still many people at CosmoCaixa. It's cool outside, stately homes, the last rays of the sun, it's going downhill. Inside the taxi, the taxi driver dodges cars like a motoring video game, foot down, zigzag, pim-pam. Oh, the Center, oh, guirigall, oh, Plaça Catalunya Rambles inside! The night is already tingling.
***

At a nearby bar, Apuntador manages to prepare a chorizo sandwich for him in record time and takes it to the Ateneo, where there is already a queue to enter. In fact, it is a queue of people who will no longer be able to access inside. The conference room that hosts the event is full to overflowing. The two floors of the room. It smells of humanity. The Pointer has to stand up, finish his sandwich half-hidden. Some ladies complain that they cannot enter, other gentlemen claim that some women have taken their place. The ICUB people have to intervene. The photographer, Pep Herrero, also runs around the room. Later we will share the stairs to rest our legs for a while. I still detect two more photographers and a Camera. The show that is about to start is one hour and forty-five minutes long. Just kidding, it's almost twice as much as the regular shows of 'La Setmana'. Very soon, but we'll see why. On stage, in the foreground, sitting at the round table, Eduardo Braier (narrator and pianist) and Claudio Frost (actor and dancer). At the bottom of it, Almut Wellman (who plays the bandoneón (for the uninitiated like l'Apuntador, say that the bandoneón is the name of the typical accordion we hear in tangos)) and the guitarist Esteban Vélez. In the background on the right, the grand piano and a standing microphone. The lights go out. Some "xxxtttt", "xxttt" can be heard in the audience, someone is arguing (apparently over the seat). "Xxxxttt", "xxxttt", makes the rest public. Let's get started. "Everything okay?" "Sure?" Claudio says. "If we do it again tomorrow," adds Sorneguer. People laugh. The event will consist of a chronological review of the history of tango in a poetic key, from its beginnings to the present day. That is, many of the lyrics of the chosen tangos will be read/declaimed rather than sung. "The tango is a popular musical genre that has: music, dance and some say it's philosophy, too", begins Eduardo, and: "the tangos talk about the ups and downs of life and reach, often, poetic flight", which touch all the keys of life, not just love. We are also told that Tango's origins are marginal, from places like the suburbs and port cities around Montevideo and Buenos Aires. And still, that at the beginning tango was something "happy and picturesque". All together, he underlines, "as if it were an opera condensed into three minutes". Eduardo continues, remembers Machado "tango is an infinite possibility". song The musicians fuck him. The two dancers, Maia Surribas and Jorge Talquenca, come out, dressed in elegant yet comfortable clothes, and delight the audience with their femur kicks and furious twirls, body to body.
On the background screen, photos are projected with the artists that the narrators are commenting on: Borges, the pioneers of tango: the poets Eduardo Arolas, Evaristo Carriego, Homero Manzi, Federico García Lorca. Between Eduardo el Claudio, who are having a bar conversation, they tell us anecdotes about all of them and put it in context. It is worth saying that the presenters are a well of knowledge. Eduardo makes more extensive explanations at the same time as weighted, tables are noticeable to him, and he becomes a kind of 'storyteller'. Claudio acts rather like the voice that challenges him. Between explanation and quoted author, they recite poems on both sides of the stage, do some duets, Eduardo also plays the piano.
In each poem, the bandoneon and the guitar accompany him masterfully. This will be the dynamic of the show. You have to admit, there is a lot of work on stage. More names and photos appear on the screen in the room: Carlos Gardel (The one who sings a Tango for the first time, the one who practically invents the way to sing it, and of whom we also get a video of him singing 'Silence') , Pascual Contursi (who we are told said: "if cheesy is what the town feels and sings, then I am cheesy"), José Maria Contursi (author of 'La noche que te fuiste'), Cátulo Castillo (author of "El último cafè"), Samuel Linning (author of the tango 'Milinguita'), Celedonio Flores ("poet king of the metric, author of countless hits"), Raquel Meyer (who, we are told, lived for many years in Barcelona ), Alfredo La Pera (lyricist who accompanied Gardel in his career), Amado Nervo (Mexican poet whom La pera was inspired by, we are told, although almost no one remembers him today). From all of them, the sea of interesting stories and adventures that I cannot convey here due to the length limit. The event turns out to be an intensive tango master, friends. "we'll do it too, even if it's uno, if we're allowed, a sung tango". More photos of artists appear on the screen, people like: Manuel Romero, Manuel Janés (who you see was Catalan, born in Manresa, who learned music in Montserrat, who went to Buenos Aires and fell madly in love and already stayed there). In fact, Argentina, they say, is where there are more Catalan families outside of Catalonia. There is even a Uruguayan theory, one of the two serious theories about it, according to Eduardo Braier, which says that Carlos Gardel's grandfather was from Sabadell. Poem, music, applause. More music, now only instrumental: piano, bandoneon and guitar. Applause More images: Enrique Santos Discépalo (who does tangos of social denunciation. Do you remember that: "que el mundo fue, es y será una porqueria, ya lo sé, in 506 and in 2000 también"?), a photo of 'el cafetín de Buenos Aires'. More songs: 'Romance de barrio', played with bandoneon and guitar. The two musicians dressed in black, she with a shirt that ends at the arms ends in transparency, shining in the heart what looks like a red carnation. The bandoneón is like a worm winding itself up, it becomes a dance in itself. The guitarist does what is so difficult to appear that you don't notice that he is there. Applause
The musicians, during the show
And we are coming to the end. Images and memories by Enrique Cadícamo (in his tangos you can see the influence of the poet Rubén Darío, they tell us), Juan Carlos Cobián, Homero Expósito (they remember: "It was softer than water, that soft water [...] First you have to know to suffer, then to love, then to part, and finally to walk without thinking, orange blossom perfume, promises [...]"? That in his day the Pointer discovered here) , Eledia Blazquez. Music, poems. "We are bequeathing to the current era, and at the end", Aníbal Troilo, Horacio Ferrer, Piazzola, Julio de Caro. We come to the end. "We could still continue many hours with the tango, [...] we have left many important poets in the inkwell". Claudio Frost stands in the middle of the stage, hat on his head, microphone in hand. The background instruments: "I come with a poem and a trombone to reveal your heart", "los locos inventaron el amor", "locos, locos todos!", "loco ella, loco yoooo!!!". Applause bravos To say goodbye, a tango and a Milonga. The dancers appear again, now in fancy dress.
The two dancers during the final tangos
Their waists, the 'puntillons' of guitar and piano, the meandering movement of the bandoneon. The tango becomes all one piece, one single gear, flanking, flirting, as if looking for the fit. Eduardo thanks the attendees, the directors and the people of ICUB and Ateneu Barcelonès. Last dance, the milonga. Now Claudio dances for a while with the dancer and after a few moves, politely, returns to the dancer. The dancers dance to it, both in one movement, their legs together, black and white, like the prolongation of the piano keys. His only waist is the bandoneon. Let's remember the teachings of Zuangzi or even that of the mentioned tango: "Y al fin, andar sin pensamiento...". Everything fits, friends. Applause bravos The protagonists salute, bow, exit and re-enter. Applause
From left to right: Esteban Vélez, Almut Wellman (partially covered), Eduardo Braier, Claudio Frost, Maia Surriba and Jorge Talquenca
People starting to parade. They decide to do an encore. A single song, instrumental. Now the Pointer takes advantage of some places where there are some empty seats to be able to sit. The leg moving to the rhythm of the music. Applause It's been almost two hours. You have to go out. You know, go back 'home', write all this. to rest

***

deep pink: poetry and tango. The 'savoir faire' of the artists, their professionalism, the love they feel for Tango and everything it represents has been noticed. A luxury you L'Apuntador climbs Rambles beyond, Raval inside. It's 'The night of the museums'. Plaça del Macba full of people, skateboarders, bmx, beers and more. The people going up and down the stairs of the Macba look like ants making and breaking their way. A young skateboarder, about fifteen years old, jumps the steps of the square and nails a 'nollie frontside flip' and a 'big-speen flip' all in one go. Deunidó, pim-pam. Applause too. L'Apuntador advances Raval inside, Carrer de la Cera. Those from Bcn neta clean and water some pedestrians. Suddenly, two young teenagers run and attack a man riding Bicing's bike, apparently because they do. They throw themselves at him quite wildly, 'full blown hurricane kick'. Someone lifts the bike: the wheel now bends forty-five degrees, the man gets up and looks at it in a daze, somewhere between angry and absent-minded. People are approaching, the teenagers must still be there but they are no longer in my sight... To know where the matter of it all comes from. Anyway. Ahead, garbage bags strewn across the street. The atmosphere is a bit of a jungle where anything can happen, you know, for better or for worse. Oh, such an austere city covered in such a mosaic! Oh, guts that you go out to get fresh so you can touch the wing at night. But it's time to go to sleep. Tomorrow - for today - we will continue. The penultimate day of 'La Setmana', already. Seize the day. Look at the program and make your agenda.
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